KP2’s vocalizations were as adept as any baby’s cries in manipulating those around him. In the pool next to his, an adult male monk seal named Nuka‘au (“sleek swimmer”) also swam in circles; his agitation grew and he growled threateningly back at the pup since he could hear but not see the competitor male who had just entered his territory. KP2’s caretakers soon came running with buckets of fish in response to his calls, and to quell the anxiety of neighboring Nuka‘au.
In that moment, based on little more than a rumbling growl and a gut reaction to a first encounter, I made the final decision. Somehow I would bring KP2 to California. I also swore once more that I would not become one of his slavish, adoring fans as I watched his caretakers hover and fawn over him. Instead KP2 would be a test, a proof of concept. The seal, together with Traci, Beau, and me, would prove to everyone back in Washington that important science could be conducted on a captive member of an endangered species and used to help the wild population.
I had entered the halls of academia and the field of animal physiology to learn what made each species unique, to understand their limitations and capacities, to see the world through wild animal eyes. I called it Survival Physiology, the identification of each animal’s biological Achilles’ heel. From that knowledge base, I could design conservation plans based on the biological needs of each species rather than on the leftovers from humans. I wanted to do this for the Hawaiian monk seal before it was too late. KP2 would be the first of his kind to participate in such an experiment. He was a scientific opportunity—nothing more, nothing less.
I did, however, empathize with the little seal’s irritability—the previous week had been a blur for both of us. Independently, KP2 and I had experienced radical changes in our environments that eventually dropped us together in Waikiki for our first rumbling encounter.
NOAA had instigated the seal’s latest journey. Once the government agency decided to remove KP2 from Molokai, it acted without hesitation. On October 15, KP2 was awakened on Kaunakakai Wharf and crowded into a cage. By the next morning, the journeyman seal was on another U.S. Coast Guard plane, this time headed to the air station at Barbers Point on Oahu. By lunchtime he was swimming in a shallow pool in the back holding area of the Waikiki Aquarium. For the second time in his life, KP2’s habitat had shrunk from the expansive luxury of tropical paradise to the sterility of a blue fiberglass-sided pool. He did not know where he was.
While KP2 was learning how to adapt to civilization after months of freedom in the wild, Beau and I were undergoing a similar psychological transition as we finally came in from the ice. For three months we had lived in cold, dark isolation. It took five flying hours from Antarctica to New Zealand, four to Sydney, and ten to Hawaii, dragging us across time zones, the Antarctic Circle, the equator, and the international date line to finally land in Honolulu.
In the city, the cross talk of multiple conversations on cell phones, traffic noise, and the sheer speed at which people moved and spoke overwhelmed us. The sensory overload left me anxious. Now I understood why wild animals in captivity often stare into the distance; I found myself looking past walls, trying to process the confusing haze of activity and sounds around me. I had a whole new appreciation for how wild creatures must feel when suddenly placed in the human world. What I found peculiar was KP2’s attraction to it. While I had spent a lifetime trying to enter the animals’ world, he had been trying to do the same thing in the opposite direction, and enter mine.
On October 21, five days after KP2’s arrival on Oahu, Beau and I landed at the Honolulu International Airport too excited about the scent of green vegetation, the feel of moisture on our skin, and the warmth of the air to care about the jet lag. It was a particularly hot fall day and I realized that the air temperature was over 150 degrees warmer than we’d been used to in Antarctica. As I sweated through my shirt, I marveled at the ability of the human body to endure such extremes.
Beau and I were ignorant of the big events occurring across town with KP2 as we collected our expedition gear from U.S. Customs. Walter Ritte, the activist from Molokai, had flown in earlier with several island residents to stage a protest against KP2’s removal from their island. The demonstration in front of the Waikiki Aquarium attracted the local Honolulu news station and provided an opportunity for Walter to vent his views about the treatment of Hawaiians in general, and the Hawaiian seal in particular, at the hands of the federal government. Seeing the front page of the Honolulu Advertiser, I wondered who was this wiry Molokai local with island-weathered skin and salt-and-pepper hair. A photograph showed Walter conducting interviews as a small group from Kaunakakai held placards reading NOAA LIED, BRING OUR SEAL HOME, and WE LOVE KP2.
Later I found out that the loss of the friendly seal was upsetting enough, but it was the suddenness of his departure that had precipitated the protest. Children had awakened to find their swimming companion missing. Their parents were furious and so was Walter.
“The kids loved that seal,” one Molokai resident told reporters. “There was no opportunity to say good-bye. Nothing.”
Walter demanded the return of KP2 to Molokai, where the seal could live in an abandoned fishpond.
Once again David Schofield faced the media spotlight and public mistrust as the federal official trying to explain the reasoning behind NOAA’s urgent actions. In a neatly pressed Hawaiian shirt and horn-rimmed glasses, David remained cool in the face of the protesters, which infuriated some in the crowd. He tried logic, recounting the many warnings that had been issued over the past seven months about the consequences of continued human interaction with KP2, but to no avail.
Walter and the people from Molokai remained adamant. The friction between Hawaiian locals and the government was all too evident on camera. The Hawaiians considered the little seal a special gift from the ocean, a ho‘ailona who had chosen them, not the other way around. To NOAA, humans had encouraged the seal to behave more like a pet than a wild animal.
Throughout the arguments there remained one critical question that neither side could answer. What would happen to KP2’s human-friendly ways when he eventually turned into a four-hundred-pound sexually active adult male seal?
• • •
BY THE NEXT MORNING, the protestors had cleared from the entrance of the aquarium, leaving me alone with the seal and his caretakers. While KP2’s greeting was rumbling and enthusiastic, the reception by his human entourage was considerably more guarded. Soon I was sweating more from the scrutiny of KP2’s caretakers than from the triple-digit increase in air temperature.
I decided not to reveal my decision regarding KP2’s move during the meeting with David Schofield, members from the Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Team, the seal’s caretakers, and the remaining aquarium staff. Instead I did as I would when encountering any group of wild animals: I simply listened. In doing so I learned one important fact. A veterinary exam upon KP2’s arrival at the aquarium had revealed that the seal’s eyesight had deteriorated significantly during his escapades in Molokai. Cataracts now obscured 80 percent of his vision.
The news made me wonder. If a male Hawaiian monk seal was considered “expendable” by my opponents, what would a blind male Hawaiian monk seal be worth? This could be the final blow for the orphaned seal splashing in front of me at the bottom of his pool.
As I walked out of the aquarium and past the protest area into a nearby park, I was immediately confronted by a pair of women I recognized as volunteer caretakers for the monk seal.
“So what do you think of our KP2?” The two women looked at me with a mix of suspicion and curiosity, circling like Nuka‘au in the pool next to KP2. I had no way of knowing what these women had been told or what they thought of my arrival on their island. I got the feeling that it was not all good.
Unsure how to respond, I considered their situation. They had raised KP2 from his very first days, nurturing him in the hopes of his succes
sful return to the wild. Not only was that dream in jeopardy, but now there was a chance that an unknown scientist who’d just breezed in from the South Pole would take him away from the islands forever. I knew what they really wanted to ask: Are you going to do mean scientific things to our KP2?
“I think you’ve done an amazing job,” I finally told them guardedly. “I’d like to help make that effort worthwhile for his species.”
There was not a lot more to add. Despite my personal decision regarding KP2’s future, I knew that the chances of the monk seal being transferred to my lab were so low as to be laughable. There were so many obstacles, not the least of which was the $17,000 transoceanic airfare.
After a moment I offered, “Maybe there is something that could be done for the people in Molokai. Perhaps the children could name the seal?”
“Oh, they’ve named him already,” one of the women quickly replied. She was wearing a ball cap with a picture of a monk seal sewn onto it.
“Yes,” her friend chimed in. “He already has a Hawaiian name.” She then quickly rattled off a long series of hard consonants and vowels that were immediately lost on my haole ears.
“Oh, good,” I said, encouraged that others had shared my idea of a Hawaiian name for KP2. “What does it mean?”
“Stolen child.”
My spirits sank as we parted.
• • •
CRESTFALLEN, I HEADED DOWN to the water’s edge feeling every bit the Dr. Kidnapper. As I dug my toes into the warm, soft sand of Waikiki Beach, I tried to understand how once again my good intentions on the part of animals led to a direct conflict with people. Life would be so much easier if the animals of the oceans could survive just by being left alone. But the world didn’t work that way. Man’s influence was far too great, and species continued to disappear before our eyes. Something had to change, and in my mind the only reasonable tool was science. Data and the truth it revealed had the power to alter people’s thinking.
Early on in my career, I’d recognized that I would have to earn a doctorate degree in science to be taken seriously. I attended Rutgers University in the heart of urban New Jersey in the turbulent seventies. Campuses were still reeling from the Newark race riots, and the main university campus had just voted to allow women to attend classes. I weathered a withering assessment by the blustery, old-school graduate department chair as he tried to convince my PhD adviser that I was not worth the investment since “she will only go off and get married.” Despite the dawn of the women’s liberation movement, sexual harassment and innuendos were a constant in the classroom, in the lab, and in the field. Glass ceilings, inequality of pay, and discrimination would catch me off guard, but they never dissuaded me. That was the price of gaining knowledge at that time, and I had the satisfaction of doing exactly what I knew I had been born to do. That was good enough.
In retrospect, my difficulties in school prepared me for what was to come as a scientist who worked with big charismatic animals. No sooner had I finished my schooling than the animal rights movement began. Suddenly, my entire chosen field of study was vilified. In 1980, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was founded. Their motto—“Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment”—placed all biologists under intense public scrutiny. The Humane Society of the United States, the Animal Liberation Front, and many other animal protection groups flourished with public donations, and “research” became a dirty word overnight. Scientists, and more specifically biologists, began to rank somewhere below dirt in the public’s mind. Unlike veterinarians, we were viewed as users, not saviors, of animals.
• • •
“STOLEN CHILD,” I REPEATED to myself as the sun began to set. Did I really need another group angry with me? What if the people of Molokai appealed to Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire, to rain bad luck on me as she did to tourists who removed volcanic rocks from her islands? Surely the punishment for absconding with one of her monk seal pups would be even worse.
Staring into the receding sunset, I recalled the moment that I finished my PhD in environmental and exercise physiology and presented the thesis to my father. Disappointed that I was not going to enter the convent and that I’d switched from medical school to become a “sorta doctor,” he had asked me incredulously, “You really like animals, don’t you?”
“They’re my life,” I’d told him, and from that point forward, every working day and playing hour had been in the company of animals. Among wild creatures I found a freedom, thrill, and inspiration that has never disappointed. Over the years, I’d been fortunate enough to breathe the dust kicked up from cheetahs sprinting across the African savanna, and feel the pounding heart of an elephant as I rested my head against its massive chest. Playful dolphins had surfed in the wake of my research boats, cutting through salt water with ease, while sea otters had made me laugh with their mittened paws raised in surrender as we passed by. I’d lived among the polar birds, seals, and whales, sharing the explosive crash of calving icebergs all the while marveling at their ability to avoid frostbite on exposed flesh. I was in awe of animals, and indebted to them for the joy they had brought me.
I would never abandon them. Nor would I abandon KP2’s monk seal family.
PART II
Passages
Clockwise from left: Traci Kendall, Beau Richter, Terrie Williams, and KP2
7.
Journeys
KP2’s longest journey began with a prayer. On November 18, one week before his transport, several members of the Molokai Island community returned to Oahu and the site of their protest at the Waikiki Aquarium. This time the visit was about safe passages.
In a private ceremony, the orphaned seal received a blessing. In attendance were representatives from every group that had played a role in KP2’s life, including his caretakers, the protesters from Molokai, David Schofield with members of the NOAA and NMFS teams, and Beau Richter from my lab, wearing his most formal board shorts. Everyone gathered around the seal’s temporary holding pool in the back lot of the aquarium.
As KP2 looked on from the water, Kahu David Ka‘upu, a retired Kamehameha Schools chaplain, and Molokai kumu hula Kanoe Davis performed a traditional Hawaiian blessing. Chanting in Hawaiian, they wished KP2 well and healing. The ceremony culminated in the offering of a flower lei, a cultural symbol of safe travel, that was draped over the seal’s transport cage.
The ceremony was a temporary truce between NOAA and the people of Molokai. News of KP2’s blindness had suppressed the divisive storm stirred up by his abrupt removal from Kaunakakai Wharf. Although not happy that the young seal was leaving the islands, everyone finally recognized that neither the veterinary expertise nor surgical facilities to care for KP2’s cataracts existed in Hawaii. But Walter Ritte, ever the activist, remained inflexible on one point: KP2 had to be returned to the islands. David Schofield agreed, vowing that KP2 would be brought back within a year—if he could find a home for him in the islands.
Less vocal was the smallest attendee, Kahi, KP2’s swimming companion from Kaunakakai. He had heard about his friend’s diseased eyes and impending move. The young boy decided to make the trip to Oahu to help with the blessing, but mostly to see his friend one more time before it was too late. With only a foot of water in the pool, the walls of KP2’s enclosure were too high and the distance too great for the playmates to touch. KP2 splashed expectantly below Kahi. This time, however, the boy did not jump in to play. Instead, Kahi shyly whispered to the seal, “I love you, KP2,” and left.
I immediately recognized how Kahi and KP2 were able to read each other and communicate without a word spoken. Others more spiritual than I could see it, too. Years before, a shaman in a Honolulu park outfitted in full headdress had picked me and my dog Austin out of a crowd. Pointing us out to the surrounding people, he’d announced loudly, “You! You have good aura!”
“And him?” I said looking down at my short dog. “What about him?”
“Ah, now, that is what I mean. Together you create a force.”
For reasons that could not be explained by science, Kahi and KP2 were drawn to each other in such a force of nature.
Soon the remainder of the participants slowly drifted from the aquarium, leaving the seal alone. One of the last to leave was Walter, who wished the seal luck, ending with, “I wish him well-being and a safe journey—back to Molokai, where he belongs!”
• • •
AFTER THE BLESSING EVENT, there was only a handful of days to prepare KP2 for the biggest adventure of his young life. The decision from Washington to allow the transfer of the monk seal from Hawaii to California had never been officially announced. Mysteriously, Amy and Jennifer had prevailed, and the seal’s move became fact. There was never any official “yes” to the move; it just seemed that the resistance had grown tired or simply no longer cared about a seal with diminished eyesight that could not be returned to the wild. Relegated to a life in captivity, KP2 was now deemed worthless to the wild population by members of the Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Team and the Marine Mammal Commission.
By default KP2 had found a home in my lab.
• • •
AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, the U.S. Navy was moving one of its Dolphin Systems from a classified mission in New Caledonia back to its base in San Diego. The same Systems dolphins that had once lived at the Kaneohe marine corps facility where I had worked and where KP2 had stacked coral to make an artificial reef now came to his rescue. Dr. Mark Xitco, a colleague of mine from the U.S. Navy’s Marine Mammal Program, arranged for KP2 to hitch a ride on the military transport C-17 as it made a fuel stop in Honolulu on its way to the mainland. Miraculously, I was off the hook for a $17,000 FedEx bill.
The Odyssey of KP2 Page 6